


How Sam Got His Groove Back

by Septembers_coda



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Apocalyptic Imagery, Dean Has Issues, Depression, First Blade, Heavy Angst, Poetry Without Plot, Sam Has Issues, Season/Series 09, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-09
Updated: 2014-05-09
Packaged: 2018-01-24 03:19:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1589744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Septembers_coda/pseuds/Septembers_coda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean’s ugly dance with the First Blade, and Sam’s unrhythm. Not a feel-good fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Sam Got His Groove Back

Sam knew nothing about dancing.

There had been a few awkward shuffles with Jess, at the bar sometimes, and once at some stuffy Stanford function. If it was rock music he was sort of OK, but traditional couples-dancing made him feel like a knock-kneed giant with four and a half left feet. 

So Sam didn’t dance.

Sometimes, after his ravaged, look-what-the-cat-dragged-in, broken-ashtray soul had been stuffed back in his body, he thought he might once have known how to dance. Frantically, ahead of the monsters. Or slow and sweet, with the woman he loved in his arms, with effortless grace, to glorious music. But now there was no dancing. Not now, not for a long time, maybe not ever again.

Dean danced. Sam saw it all the time. Not just mockingly, not just moving his shoulders and tapping the steering wheel of the Impala. With Death. With his conscience. With memories uglier than any man should be able to hold, in intricate loops and dizzying swirls and with the sure feet of a predator. He danced now with the First Blade, a danse macabre of unparalleled, horrific grace.

The horror froze Sam’s feet, froze any memory of music in his soul, any sense of rhythm he had ever had. It played like the ultimate unrhythm in his head, a way to walk to avoid the worm. He could not move as Dean did, could not duplicate Dean’s steps, not even to save him. Dean’s rhythm was tireless and perfect and he had been consumed in the sand long ago.

When Sam released the trapped souls at the convent, he remembered again. Dancing. There was light in this world. There was laughter. There was a place somewhere that evil could not touch.

He would never find it. He could never lead Dean there.

Not unless he learned how to dance. Not unless Dean took off the Red Shoes. Not unless the world burned first, and they with it.

Dean might know how to dance, but Sam knew how to burn.


End file.
